Navigating the world of book publishing can be an overwhelming task for new authors, and that’s where Alexandria resident Barbara Leary wants to step in.
Leary founded Finch & Squirrel as a literary mentorship studio providing coaching, resources and indie publishing services for writers of all skill levels. The studio recently celebrated three debut authors on publication of their first children’s books — “When There Are More Than Two” by George Mason University communications professional Buzz McClain, “Jack’s Journey: One Kitty, Three Cities” by Leary’s friend Lynn Hays and “Would a Kitten Do That?” by Alexandria Tutoring Consortium tutor Sherry Harowitz.
Leary is an author herself, including children’s books inspired by each of her three grandchildren. She teaches corporate communications as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and has over three decades of communications, writing, editing and publishing experience.
ALXnow: Can you tell me a little bit about your career background and how you got involved with publishing?
Leary: Very early in my career, I worked for an agency in D.C. and did some magazine publishing for one of my clients, so my very first taste of it was in my early 20s, and I loved it. You can probably relate to why. I mean, there’s something about that immediate gratification of you do the work, you see the product, you get to put it out to the world, hold it in your hands. So I love publishing, but I moved more into corporate communications than almost 30 years there, moving up and down the East Coast, and working for a bunch of different companies, mostly in the Fortune 500. It was great work, but I got into communication because I love to write, and after a while I kind of missed writing for myself, my own creative projects.
So when I semi-retired, I started spending more time writing, and eventually started thinking about publishing again and took on a passion project for a theater I worked for a long time ago in my career — the Lost Colony outdoor drama on the Outer Banks. I worked for the show for four years, and I was just so dazzled by what it takes to put on a summer-long production … I published this coffee table book with a bunch of photos, and hired one of the former actors to actually do the writing, so that was my kind of return back to publishing. It’s a fairly complicated project, as you might imagine, but it was great and I wanted to do more of it. So, when my granddaughters were born, I kind of turned my attention to writing stories for them, and that’s what brought me to children’s books.
ALXnow: So, you’ve published children’s books yourself.
Leary: Yeah, I’ve done three so far. Yeah, I wrote one for each of my three granddaughters. I had written the stories, and they were kind of sitting on the shelf, I was thinking about having them traditionally published, and went to some writers’ conferences, and the feedback I got was that, gosh, it’s really competitive and might take a long time, and I just thought, ‘I don’t want to wait that long.’ In the meantime, got a brain tumor and have that taken out. That kind of gave me a sense of urgency to move ahead with self-publishing, so that’s what I did.
Then when those books came out, I had so many people coming to me and saying, ‘I’ve always wanted to publish a children’s book, I’ve got this idea, don’t know what to do with it, I don’t know how.’ So I started helping other people, and that’s kind of how this little business of mine, Finch & Squirrel, grew. I put it up a year or so ago. Yeah, and this spring I had helped three authors with local ties get their books out into the world. That was really fun.
ALXnow: What is the full range of services that you are providing with these authors?
Leary: I will help them with their manuscript, so if somebody is not a confident writer, I teach writing. I’m an adjunct professor at Georgetown, and even though I teach writing for corporate communications, I can help somebody take a story and get it down on the page. So if they’re starting from an idea, I can help them write the story. I don’t write it for them, but I can coach them through it. Then, once they have the story, I’ll review the manuscript. I’ll look it over for its suitability for the age that they’re targeting. There are certain conventions for the kid lit market, and help guide them through that, because it’s pretty particular. When I wrote my own first book, I’d never written for kids before, so I actually hired a coach myself and went through about 18 drafts and a lot of feedback from my grandchildren.
So I help them through the manuscript, and then when they have the final manuscript, then I can help them find an illustrator and explain to them what to expect for collaboration, help them set up their book, so the illustrator knows what they’re looking for, understands their vision, and I do as little or as much of that with them as they need, and then finally, when they have the final files, I help them through the process of getting the ISBN number, all that technical stuff you have to do in order to publish, so getting it uploaded to the print on demand platforms, explaining all those things to them, and how all that works, setting the pricing for global distribution.
I’ll also help people who are working on a memoir. I did about a year ago, edited and published this memoir for my sister, which was 18 years after she died actually. She left me her writing, and so I went through that process, so I can help people with nonfiction projects, memoir projects, picture book projects. I don’t work with novelists, it’s a whole other ball game, but I can refer them to people who do.
ALXnow: What are the different publishing routes an author can take?
Leary: There’s essentially three ways to publish: the traditional, traditional publishing, which is highly competitive, very time consuming. You have to really want to make a career out of being a writer willing to spend a lot of time. And then there’s hybrid publishing, where essentially you’re paying for services from another publisher, and they’ll publish the book for you, and they’ll take a share of the royalties. And then there’s independent publishing, where you do it all yourself. Mine is kind of like a version of independent publishing, where I’m just helping them through that process, they’re keeping all the royalties, they’re setting up their own accounts, all the royalties are going directly to them. I show them how to do it so the next time they want to do it all on their own, they can. They don’t have to pay someone else.
ALXnow: Are there certain types of books that might be more competitive for publishing, like say children’s books?
Leary: Yeah, children’s books are incredibly challenging, because there is a lot of competition. There are a lot of very well-known authors out there already, but really, almost any kind of book is a challenge to get traditionally published, and I think that’s one reason why independent publishing has grown so much faster than traditional publishing, which is actually contracted a little bit. Publishing, or especially in the juvenile categories, has grown something like 25% 30%.
ALXnow: Is there anything you’d recommend for authors that haven’t published before, but want to get into it, and what do you want them to know up front before they go into independent publishing?
Leary: There are tons of resources out there. I’ve listed a bunch of resources for free on my website, Finchandsquirrel.com. I’d kind of start there, and depending on what they want to publish, try to familiarize themselves somewhat with the business side of that genre, and the best place to start is Janefriedman.com. She is probably the foremost expert on publishing, and she’s where I started, so I think they could learn a lot there, and she’s got a really helpful guide to the different kinds of publishing, so that people can put them over, weigh their options.
One thing I would caution people on is, there are a lot of bad actors in the hybrid publishing category, a lot of places that are shams, outright shams, other places that are pretty much a ripoff. So, you have to do a lot of research to find the reputable ones. They do exist, but it takes some research to find them. There’s a website that can help, called Writer Beware. It’ll show them some things to look for. Before you’re signing any contracts or shelving out any money, I would do plenty of research and maybe talk to somebody who’s been through it. I do brief quick consulting calls for people who they’re just curious, so yeah, always happy to talk to somebody for free, and listen to what they’re interested in doing, and explain to them maybe where they want to start, or what their next steps might be.
